Manifolds, in particular for shuttle valves, have long been known from the prior art. Shuttle valves are valves which have an inlet flange and two outlet flanges, wherein the passage to either the one or the other outlet is opened by a slider. A respective safety valve is arranged on the outlet flanges. The shuttle valves are made up of an inlet manifold and two outlet manifolds, on whose outlet flanges a respective safety valve is located. With the outlet manifold, the shuttle valve is seated on the pipe which conducts the medium. Safety valves are configured such that in the event of excess pressure they provide that the medium can be blown off to reduce the pressure, but that the medium in the majority of all cases is returned into the system again in order, particularly with toxic gases, to prevent such gases entering into the environment.
In the prior art, the manifold of such a shuttle valve is overdimensioned to keep flow losses small. The reason for this can be found in the fact that, in the event of flow losses which are too large, the corresponding safety valve associated with the shuttle valve may no longer respond. Large manifold housings, however, mean an increased use of material, with such a shuttle valve already being very expensive, particularly when the manifolds are manufactured from stainless steel.